(1) Information relating to a printing medium, that is, to printing media such as roll paper, can be held in a storage element provided in a portion of the roll paper unit or the like (for example the core portion of the roll paper), and can be read in by a printing apparatus. By automatically reflecting attribute information relating, for example, to the remaining amount of roll paper, the type of paper, its thickness, width or the like in the printing control, a high-quality printing result may easily be achieved.
However, in particular in the case of single-sheet media such as cut paper, instead of handling a large number of sheets together as a unit, individual sheets with differing attributes are often printed sheet by sheet. In those cases, ordinarily, the user must perform individual settings using a driver software of the printing apparatus on a screen of a personal computer or the like, which is extremely bothersome.
In recent years, many kinds of very small and thin memory elements have been developed that are configured of a planar antenna coil and capacitor and a miniature IC chip.
These are used for IC cards or the like and, provided with a semiconductor memory and a computer circuit, the elements themselves have a calculation processing function, and can send or receive data with a contact/noncontact read-write sensor. The information amount that they can hold is by far larger than that of printed information such as bar codes, and also the manufacturing costs are becoming inexpensive.
Now, it is conceivable to store various kinds of media attribute information beforehand in the printing media themselves, using such a compact memory element.
Furthermore, not only the attribute information of the printing media themselves as described above, but also information relating to the printing result may become important afterwards. Information relating to the printing result may be, for example, information about what kind of printing apparatus the printing was performed with, or information on what kind of data were printed and where they were stored on the hard disk of the computer. This information is important when it is necessary to obtain a printing result of the same image with the same quality at a later date. Now, relying merely on one's memory, one often tends to forget this information. Furthermore, even when the driver software of the printing apparatus has a function of storing this information, it cannot be utilized when printing with a different computer at a different place.
(2) Furthermore, as mentioned above, information relating to a printing medium, that is, to printing media such as roll paper, can be held in a storage element provided in a portion of the roll paper unit or the like (for example the core portion of the roll paper), and can be read in by a printing apparatus. By automatically reflecting attribute information relating, for example, to the remaining amount of roll paper, the type of paper, its thickness, width or the like in the printing control, it is easy to achieve a high-quality printing result.
However, in particular in the case of single-sheet media such as cut paper, individual sheets with differing attributes are often printed sheet by sheet. In those cases, ordinarily, the user must perform individual settings using the driver software of the printing apparatus on a screen of a personal computer or the like, which is extremely bothersome.
To address this problem, also for single-sheet media, the type of the printing medium (regular paper, glossy paper, OHP paper, etc.) can be read in by an optical sensor provided on the printing apparatus, and suitable printing control may be carried out. Furthermore, it is also known to provide information about the printing medium itself by printing a bar code or the like beforehand on the media themselves.
However, only extremely limited information, such as the glossiness or the transparence (in the case of OHP paper or the like), can be read out with an optical sensor from the light reflected by the media. Furthermore, the information amount that can be held by information printed as a bar code or the like is extremely small, and can be used only for very limited printing control. Furthermore, the reading process by an optical sensor largely varies, and inaccurate attribute information is often obtained.
In recent years, many kinds of very small and thin memory elements have been developed that are configured of a planar antenna coil and capacitor and a miniature IC chip.
These are used for IC cards or the like and, provided with a semiconductor memory and a computer circuit, the elements themselves have a calculation processing function, and can send or receive data with a contact/noncontact read-write sensor. The information amount that they can hold is by far larger than that of printed information such as bar codes, and also the manufacturing costs are becoming inexpensive.
(3) Furthermore, it is possible to take a picture with any of a variety of image-capturing devices, such as digital cameras, digital video cameras, or mobile phones equipped with a digital camera, and to print it onto a printing medium such as paper, with any kind of printing apparatus such as inkjet printer or laser beam printer, based on the image data obtained when taking the picture.
The image data obtained when taking the picture in some cases are sent to the printing apparatus and printed after reading them into a personal computer and correcting or editing them, and in other cases they are sent to the printing apparatus and printed not through a personal computer, but directly from the image-capturing device or via recording media.
In recent years, many kinds of very small and thin memory elements have been developed that are configured of a planar antenna coil and capacitor and a miniature IC chip. These are used for IC cards or the like and, provided with a semiconductor memory and a computer circuit, the elements themselves have a calculation processing function, and can send or receive data with a contact/noncontact read-write sensor. The information amount that they can hold is by far larger than that of printed information such as bar codes, and also the manufacturing costs are becoming inexpensive.
Sometimes, when viewing at a later date the printing medium that was printed based on the image data generated with the image-capturing device, one may want to know the image-capturing conditions used when taking the picture. For example, if one has taken a picture of Mt. Fuji with a digital camera and printed it on paper with an inkjet printer, and one views this paper print of Mt. Fuji at a later date, one may want to know the image-capturing conditions, such as on what day of what month of what year, using which model of digital camera, and what shutter speed the picture was taken.
In this respect, it is possible to print the image-capturing conditions, such as the date the picture was taken, together with the image when printing it onto the printing surface of a printing medium.
However, it is not preferable that the image-capturing conditions are printed overlapping the image.
Furthermore, when printing the image-capturing conditions such that they do not overlap with the image, then a region for printing the image-capturing conditions has to be reserved on the printing medium separately from the image printing region.
The present invention has been conceived in view of these issues (the issues stated under (1) to (3) above), and its object is to realize a printing medium with which various kinds of information relating to the printing medium can be held on the printing medium itself, an element provided in or on that printing medium, a printing apparatus for printing on that printing medium, and a computer system having such a printing apparatus and a computer main unit connected to that printing apparatus.
Furthermore, the present invention realizes a printing medium with which image-capturing conditions and output control information or the like can be suitably held on the printing medium itself, an element provided in or on such a printing medium, a printing apparatus for printing on that printing medium, and a computer system.